Thunderbird

As well as the hardware problems mentioned in my last post I also recently had a software problem.  Starting on Tuesday June 7, 2022 the default Windows 10 email program (Version 16005.14326.20970.0) starting displaying some of my received emails as unreadable markup language gibberish. Strangely my oldest machine using the default Windows Vista email program was still able to display these emails in a human readable format. Some internet research provided no clue as to what was going wrong or how to fix it.  So I decided to try the free email program Thunderbird.

Downloading Thunderbird was easy but getting it to communicate correctly with my Aol email server was a bit aggravating. If you make a mistake you can get into an unfixable state which requires erasing the Thunderbird folder in an obscure Windows directory and starting over. However with the help of considerable internet research and trial and error I eventually got things working.  Once set up correctly Thunderbird seems to work fine. The problematic emails are now readable.

So this problem ultimately wasn't a big deal. However it left me a bit annoyed with Microsoft. It is not to their credit that the Windows Vista email program seems to be superior to the Windows 10 one.  As well displaying emails correctly I prefer the whole user interface.  I much prefer the Windows Vista photo gallery program as well.  It seems like Microsoft figures that it doesn't pay to spend too much money on these sorts of basic functions. 

Lenovo Chromebook 3

Early in 2020 I complained about a cracked screen on my HP notebook computer (model 15-b0015dx) which HP refused to fix under their warranty.  However I continued to use the machine for web browsing.  Besides the cracked screen the computer was prone to overheating and shutting down.  Perhaps this was causing long term damage as recently the disc drive appears to have progressively failed making the machine unusable.  The symptoms were as follows.  First the computer started closing some windows immediately after opening them.  This made some programs like Microsoft Solitaire unusable but others like the web browser continued to work normally.  Various purported remedies found on the internet failed to fix the problem but I didn't suspect a hardware issue at the time.  Then a few weeks later I noticed some of the icons normally on my desktop were missing.  I tried to reboot the computer to fix this but I ended up in the Windows Recovery Environment instead after some messages about automatic repair failing.  The recovery environment provides a MS-DOS window.  MS-DOS commands seemed to be working normally and I was able to save a couple files by copying them from the C: drive to a memory stick.  Then perhaps unwisely I tried running chkdsk.  This ran for over a day reported numerous errors and seems to have damaged my hard drive further.  When it finally finished MS-DOS could no longer find the C: drive making it hard to do much of anything.  Fortunately I had already saved the file I cared about most.       

My older Dell laptop which I had not been using much had failed more abruptly (probably also with a bad disc drive) a few months earlier so I needed a new machine for web browsing.  I ended up ordering a Lenovo Chromebook 3 - Model 82BA001FUS (11.6" HD Laptop - Celeron N4020 - 4GB Memory - 64GB eMMC - Onyx Black)  on sale from Best Buy for $79.  It was delivered a few days ago and I have been trying it out.

Chromebooks use Google's Chrome OS instead of  Microsoft Windows.  Together with a somewhat different keyboard layout this took a little getting used to.  It seems to work okay for web browsing the primary intended use.  However I don't (at least so far) find it as pleasant to use as the HP notebook (even with its problems).  The screen is noticeably smaller and displays less of a typical web page making for more paging up and down.  And I find the keyboard a bit awkward.  Although this is in part lack of familiarity.  It takes a little time to get used to using the alt key to emulate some of the missing keys (so for example delate is alt + backspace, page up is alt + up arrow and so on).  On the plus side the machine seems sturdier than the HP notebook and hopefully will hold up better over time.  The solid state drive is faster and may be more reliable than a mechanical disk drive but it offers considerably less storage and won't last forever as each memory cell can only be written to a limited number of times before becoming unreliable.

Bottom line I was attracted to this machine because of the cheap price and it seems functional.  However it is clearly low end, many people will prefer to pay more for a better machine.

Try, Try Again

As I have mentioned a couple of times, in 2010 I bought a cheap Dell Inspiron laptop computer. It has held up pretty well with a lot of use. However a couple of years ago it developed an annoying issue. The automatic Windows 10 update process started to fail repeatedly with an obscure error message about data corruption. I tried various purported remedies that I found with internet searches but none of them fixed the problem. I had basically given up and was resigned to living with an increasingly obsolete operating system (like with my still older Dell Inspiron desktop running Windows Vista).  However to my surprise on or about December 30, 2020 the update succeeded so the machine is now running the newest (20H2) version of Windows 10.

Upgrading to a new version of Windows 10 apparently wipes out the update history so I am unsure exactly when the problem started or how many failed attempts there were (it seemed like dozens at least). This wikipedia article has a table showing the Windows 10 version history. Based on this my best guess is that my machine was previously running Version 1803 of Windows 10 which was released April 30, 2018. The next version 1809 was released November 13, 2018 but apparently didn't get installed on my machine. The end of support for 1803 was November 12, 2019 leading to nagging messages from the Windows's updater about moving to a supported version of the operating system. However as noted above repeated attempts to do so always failed with an obscure error message. Whatever the problem was persisted through versions 1809, 1903, 1909 and 2004 as they became available. But it seems to have gone away with version 20H2 which first became available October 20, 2020.  New versions aren't installed immediately on all machines (my other laptop is still on 2004) but apparently installation was attempted on December 30 and succeeded.

So far (with limited use) I haven't encountered any problems with 20H2 so hopefully there was no actual data corruption issue and Microsoft just had some bug in their update process that went away when 20H2 was released. This problem wasn't the biggest deal in the world as I could still use the machine (which was gradually becoming functionally obsolete anyway) but it is still a rather sobering example of how hard it can be for the average person to effectively deal with this sort of obscure computer issue.  

HP Notebook Breaks

Last summer I received as a gift a HP notebook computer (model 15-db0015dx). This is a low end machine but it was fine for web browsing and checking my email. However after about 6 months of normal use it developed a flaw in the upper left hand corner of the screen (which I am told is due to a crack in a internal glass sheet). Although the machine was theoretically still within the one year warranty period HP refused to fix it. Their position appears to be that any problem that could conceivably be due to customer abuse of the product isn't covered by the warranty. Which of course makes the warranty of little value as I not sure what if anything would be covered.

In my case the problem could easily have been due to a manufacturing defect, the machine could have been assembled slightly out of spec with the glass jammed into a position where it didn't quit fit and was under stress which eventually caused it to crack. Or the design could be inherently defective, unable to withstand normal use. According to internet sources some of the newer lightweight machines are so flimsy that just holding the display part by the top corner instead of the top center to open it can crack the screen. Which in my view is a defective design.

This has left me considerably annoyed with HP and I will be reluctant to buy their products in the future. I will also think twice about extremely lightweight designs. I bought a Dell Inspiron laptop about 10 years ago. While a little clunkier it has held up fine with similar use. 

Phishing

I sometimes receive emails pretending to be from a legitimate business such as a bank trying to get me to divulge sensitive information such as account numbers or passwords.  This fraudulent practice is called "phishing".  Such emails are easy to recognize when they purport to be from a business that you do not have a relationship with.  However if you are sending out millions of such emails you don't need a high response rate.  You just need to get lucky a few times with recipients who for one reason or another find the email plausible enough to get past their guard.

This happened to me.  I have a corporate credit card with American Express which I rarely use but had recently used on a business trip.  I had also recently filled out an online form with a financial institution which has moved to a mandatory 2-factor authentication system.  So when I received an email purportedly from American Express (similar to this) asking me to update my authentication information I accepted it as genuine without much thought. 

It is a well known psychological phenomenon that people prefer to incorporate new information into an existing world view rather than rather than use it to overturn previous beliefs.  So once I had accepted the email as genuine I didn't revisit this question as I filled out the attached form despite some in hindsight red flags.  Even when the form asked for my email password (which I refused to provide) I didn't question that the email was genuine believing instead that American Express was being unreasonably nosy.  It wasn't until I was driving to work the next day that the penny dropped and I realized I should consider the possibility that the email was fake.  Still I was a little reluctant to abandon my preexisting belief even as I added up the considerable evidence favoring fake.

Fortunately my mistake will apparently have no serious consequences.  I am not sure any of the information I provided actually got back to the sender as I didn't complete the form and submit it (whereupon according to the link above I would have been redirected to a genuine American Express page).  In any case I notified American Express that evening who told me they hadn't been any recent activity on my card and that I wasn't responsible for fraudulent charges.  All in all they didn't seem very concerned but did give me an email address to forward the fake email to.  I did so and received an acknowledgement so I think I am covered.

I was a little concerned that the email might have ill intentions besides eliciting sensitive information (like for example encrypting my hard drive and requesting ransom to decrypt it) but the link above seems to discount any such possibilities. 

AlphaZero

The Deep Mind division of Google just released a paper in which they describe how they applied the methods they used to develop a Go program that achieved super human strength to develop programs to play chess and shogi.  The best previously existing chess and shogi programs are based on alpha/beta search and have been incrementally improved over many years.  They have been stronger than the best human chess players for about 20 years (Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov in a 6 game match in 1997) and recently surpassed human shogi players as well.  However the Google programs (named AlphaZero in each case) appear to be stronger still, defeating Stockfish, a strong chess program, and Elmo, a strong shogi program by wide margins in 100 game matches.  10 example games (all wins for AlphaZero) in the match against Stockfish were included in an appendix to the paper and can be played over here.  They are pretty convincing (with the caveat that there doesn't seem to be much opening variation).  AlphaZero wins several games with long term positional sacrifices where it is not initially apparent that it has sufficient compensation for the material loss.

This is kind of a big deal.  People had tried applying Monte Carlo search with neural net evaluation functions to chess before but were unable to match the performance of highly tuned alpha/beta search programs developed over many years with lots of domain specific knowledge hardwired in.   Using a general algorithm with domain specific knowledge limited to the rules of the game to quickly develop apparently superior programs is impressive and a bit scary.

Leela

Earlier this year I recommended the web based free computer Go program, Cosumi.  Leela is another free computer Go program.  Unlike Cosumi it runs on your computer.  I downloaded version 0.7.0 (the current version is 0.8.0) a few months ago.  I have played both programs quite a bit, mostly 9x9 games.

The programs have distinct styles.  Cosumi apparently plays to maximize its score.  This reduces its winning percentage because it doesn't play safe when ahead or take more risks when behind.  I have won many lost games because Cosumi loses a live group (or allows me to revive a dead group or both) while trying for 1 or 2 more points and misreading something.  Cosumi doesn't resign and will play games out to the end.  I like this as it allows me to practice my endgame and counting skills even if the game isn't close.

Leela on the other hand appears (like other Monte Carlo tree search programs such as Alpha Go) to play to maximize its winning percentage. This has some weird effects when Leela doesn't think the game is close as a bad move which loses some points may be hard to distinguish from a good move in terms of winning percentage.  So when Leela is ahead it will often chuck away points and end up winning by half a point although the game wasn't actually close.  And when Leela is behind at some point it will start making unsound moves in a desperate attempt to catch up.  If you keep your head and reply correctly Leela will then soon resign.  I don't like this behavior as I like to know what the margin of victory (or defeat) was.  Leela does have a "no resign" option which I haven't tried. By itself it won't help much as Leela still won't always be playing good moves if it doesn't think the game is close and the margin of victory may not be an accurate reflection of how close the game was.

Leela is the stronger program especially on the full 19x19 board.  Cosumi is competitive on the 9x9 board.  I matched the programs against each other in a 10 game 9x9 match and Leela only won 6-4. But when I tried a couple of 19x19 games Leela crushed Cosumi.  This is consistent with my experience.  I usually lose to Cosumi on 9x9 but easily won the two 19x19 games I tried against it. Cosumi seems to have trouble evaluating the safety of large groups and sometimes loses them because it fails to adequately secure them.  It's hard to win if you keep losing large groups.

Leela is a pretty simple program but it does have more options than Cosumi.  It has a rated game option in which it tries to adjust its strength to match yours.  And it has an analysis feature in which you can go over a game and see how Leela evaluates each position.  There isn't much documentation and there are additional features I would like to see but I can't complain too much about a free program.

Another difference between the programs is Cosumi uses Japanese (territorial) scoring while Leela uses Chinese (area) scoring.  This usually doesn't matter (it didn't come up in the games I had them play each other) but it can make a point or two difference which could change the result of a close game so it is something to be aware of.  There are also some slight differences in the rules which usually don't matter but sometimes do.

So in summary I would also recommend the Leela program if you are looking for a free computer Go opponent.  I found it easy to download and install on my Windows laptop (there also seems to be a Apple macOS version).  Leela is stronger especially on 19x19 and has more features but Cosumi also has things to recommend it.  And the different styles mean you can vary your experience by playing both.  It is said that constantly playing the same computer opponent can teach you bad habits as a computer program may consistently let you get away with certain bad moves.  Hopefully playing two quite different programs will lessen this problem.

Corrupt user profile

One annoying thing that can happen to you on a Windows computer is your user profile can get corrupted in a way that prevents you from logging into your account.  Instead you get the error message "The User Profile Service failed the logon.  User profile cannot be loaded."  Last weekend this happened to me for the second time on my Windows Vista machine.  I am unsure of the cause, perhaps a power glitch at just the wrong time (I also got an error message about Windows not having shut down properly).  Fortunately this time the fix proved relatively simple once I figured out what to do.

This is apparently a fairly common problem with lots of advice on the web about what to do. Unfortunately some of this advice seems flawed. For example this Microsoft page has several suggestions but they have drawbacks.  For this reason once rebooting the system fails the next thing you should try is using the System Restore function to return your computer to an earlier working state.  When this succeeds as it did in my case it solves the problem with little effort.  However the Microsoft web page does not suggest this and instead offers some (in my view) inferior alternatives.

The first suggestion is to "fix" your user account profile by editing the registry.  However as best I can tell this doesn't actually fix your profile, instead it replaces it with the default profile you get when you first set up your account.  This will allow you to logon but you won't have your accustomed environment.  I am not sure how serious the differences are as I didn't pursue this further.

The second suggestion is to create a new account and then copy most of your files from your old account to your new account.  This is what I ended up having to do the first time I had this problem and it worked more or less.  But it was quite a lot of trouble, things didn't end up exactly the same as before and I found the involuntary account name change annoying.

The earlier instance of this problem was a delayed effect of a malware infection.  This was made worse by the fact that I (due to laziness) had not created separate user and administrator accounts. This is a bad idea which made fixing things harder as in order to create a new user account I first had to create an administrator account without being able to login normally which fortunately is possible but a bit complicated.  This time my now separate administrator account was unaffected.

Be patient when using System Restore, I initially thought it was failing to launch but it was just taking its time (several minutes or so it seemed) to come up.    

Minesweeper

I recently upgraded my laptop to Windows 10.  One disadvantage is the classic minesweeper game has gone away.  Fortunately I can still play it on an older desktop running Windows Vista.  I recently had to create a new account on this machine because a malware infection had rendered my previous account unusable.  This meant my minesweeper win rate statistics were reset and I could easily track my recent performance.  I have since played 100 games on the difficult (16x30) board of which I won 43.  Most of the losses were due to unavoidable guesses but I sometimes trigger a bomb unexpectedly due to flagging a square as a bomb incorrectly.  These errors are most commonly caused by failing to notice a diagonal adjacency.  Taking this into account I estimate the win rate with optimal play is around 50%.

Windows 10

As you may have heard Microsoft is offering a free upgrade from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10.  The offer is currently set to expire on July 29, 2016.  One of my home computers, a cheap Dell Inspiron laptop running Windows 8 which I bought in 2010, was eligible for the offer.  Due to laziness and paranoia I had delayed accepting but with the deadline approaching I upgraded on July 4th.  So far despite some minor annoyances I haven't regretted doing so.  Hopefully this will extend the useful life of the laptop with which I have been generally pleased.

Computer Go

Last month the computer Go program AlphaGo beat a top human player, Lee Sedol, 4-1 in a 5 game match. Long ago I studied Go some but never played enough to become very good. However I know the basics and was able to follow the match with some interest (despite the live games being at an inconvenient time). Go is a harder game for computers to play than chess and 20 years ago when IBM's computer chess program, Deep Blue, was playing Garry Kasparov, computer Go programs were pretty bad. So there has been a lot of progress. I see three big contributors to this milestone. First a new algorithm, Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS), developed about 10 years ago, proved to work very well for Go. Second there has been continuous progress in machine learning, in particular deep learning for artificial neural networks. Third computer technology continues to advance rapidly. Modern graphics processing units (GPUs) provide incredible computational power for suitable problems and this has contributed to recent advances in deep learning.

If you are interested in playing an online computer Go program check out the Cosumi site. It provides a variety of skill levels and board sizes (standard Go is played on a 19x19 grid but smaller sizes make for a faster game and are easier for computers to handle). I have played some 9x9 games against it. I find it an entertaining opponent. At level 5 (the highest level provided) it still moves quickly but can beat me most of the time despite the occasional weird blunder.  I recommend the 2-click setting to avoid frustrating unintended moves.  Unfortunately the FAQ is in Japanese so I don't know anything about the underlying program. Apparently it has been around for a while but I didn't discover it until the match got me interested in Go again.